Plainsmen Swimming Begins The Post-Season Push [VIDEO]

It might be just the start of February, but a winter sport is already at the post-season, as the Laramie Plainsmen compete at the conference meet.

Laramie will be in Evanston for the 4A West Conference Championships at Davis Middle School Friday and Saturday, Feb. 1 and 2. LHS will be competing against the host Red Devils, Green River, Rock Springs, Kelly Walsh, and Natrona County.

Plainsmen head coach Tom Hudson says his squad has been some health issues as they head into the conference meet.

“We’ve had a lot of sickness in the last two weeks. Hopefully, we’ll be back to close to 100 percent by the conference meet. The main goal really, we want to win the conference championship. It’s going to be a big challenge coming from Kelly Walsh, a little bit from Green River, but our goal is to win the event.”

Hudson also wants to get more state qualifiers. Laramie enters the meet with 13 on the season. He says four are very, very close.

Two individuals are favored to win conference titles. Junior Max DeYoung will be in the 200 individual medley and the 100 backstroke races. Senior Christopher Bury is the top diver.

A couple of more key pieces to the Laramie lineup are the Fontana brothers, senior Connor and freshman Collin. They visited with KOWB’s David Settle about the conference meet, the season, having a brother on the team, and more.

The Plainsmen were originally scheduled to host the conference championships, but when they got switched to the West Conference, it will be their first trip to Evanston in several seasons.

Hudson said of competing at the new venue, “Most of these kids have never seen this pool, even our seniors, they have never seen it. So, yeah, it’s going to be kind of a change. We’ve had state meets in this pool. It’s not a bad place. They have decent seating, the elevation’s pretty high, up at 7,000 feet, so we’re used to that, but looking forward to going down there, it’s a little bit of a longer drive, but we’re going to make the best of it.”

The prelims are Friday, Feb. 1, starting at 1 p.m. with diving. The swim prelims follow at 4 p.m. The finals are Saturday, Feb. 2, beginning at 11 a.m.